Stickers to My Postal Pals! Sent to Hawaii & Japan

Do you ever get mail from postal pals, and wonder how you can possibly match–let alone top–their creativity, generosity, and/or resourcefulness?  Welcome to my world.  I just have to resign myself to do my best.  I recently sent a little something to friends in Hawaii & Tokyo, who just happen to both be Peanuts lovers.

I remember the “Easter Beagle” TV special being one of my favorites as a kid.  I don’t remember why, but I think I have the DVD around someplace, so I can rediscover the reason.

Fortunately, cool Peanuts stickers do turn up occasionally in a drugstore, supermarket, or card shop, as these two varieties did at the same time about a week ago. Then I made a couple of envelopes; a page from a worn out Richard Scarry book went off to Hawaii…

…along with a postcard that just came into my life a day or so before. I have a bad habit of sending Hawaii-related stuff right back to Hawaii, including this Mama’s Fish House card someone at my workplace apparently didn’t want anymore.

For my Tokyo-bound packet, I fashioned an envelope out of a photo from last year’s Save the Manatee Club calendar.  This is at least the 3rd year I’ve been making sure to have one of these calendars hanging in my kitchen–and for all I know, they keep publishing the same shots every year!

A note on a Snoopy card–because no one at work dumped off any postcards for Tokyo restaurants.

Here are the backs of the envelopes, complete with washi tape & on one, a sticker.  The sticker came from the Marine Mammal Center (a wonderful California organization for which a family member has volunteered; to which I occasionally donate; and to which my Amazon Smile preference is currently designated).

STAMPY! But it’s what’s on the outside that counts: Sent to Australia

This is all for another swap-bot stamp trade, in which we are to send our assigned partner 25 postage stamps, old or new (I sent 32).  This is on its way to Silverdale, NSW, Australia.  As I’ve mentioned, I don’t even collect stamps. I think–no, I KNOW–I just want the chance to use some of these envelopes I’ve been making out of worn-out, discarded library books.

As far as the stamps go, I really DO like one of these: it’s the bright yellow stamp from Finland, with the happy fir trees.  Do you have a favorite?

Face it, Tiger: You’re Surrounded by Mail Art! Sent to Finland and the United States

It’s a swap-botty kind of day…

The three collaged cards are part of a “chunk ‘o’ cardboard” exchange, in which we need to do no more than mail out a simple scrap of cardboard cut to postcard proportions.  Sometimes I use these for my silly version of mail art, which may not be to others’ standards, either in artistic perspective or skill.

The top left card started life as a Kleenex box, onto which I slapped a bit of coffee label, and then characters from the packaging of pharmaceuticals, Kinder toys, and taro chips.  This lovely, layered piece of art goes to the swap’s host in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

The set of two are cardboard scraps covered with a nighttime scene from a coffee canister, and then populated with Richard Scarry characters rescued from a worn-out, discarded library book.  They go to two cities in New York: New York City, and Liverpool.

The tiger is headed for Kokkola, Finland, part of a “Zazzle” swap in which we are to mail out cards we have had professionally printed (by whatever company) from our own images.  This, surely, will be one of the best cards ever sent out in that trade!

Sent to Canada and the United States

Whoa!

A postcard of a taxidermied bear entered my collection, and I absolutely hated it (and it didn’t help that the description on the back is of when the bear was “taken,” and the score its hunter receieved).  I didn’t imagine any scenario in which I might send this to an appreciative recipient–but then came the swap-bot “alter a postcard” trade.  A few clippings from a worn-out Richard Scarry book, and we have a live bear, and a scene that could be out of out of Disney’s old Country Bears Jamboree attraction.  It’s headed for a swap-botter in McLean, Virginia, who–uh-oh–may well hate the new version of the card as much as I hated the old one!

The tuk-tuk card is one I bought a couple of months back while in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  I sent it out for a swap-bot “not my country trade,” to a recipient in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  I told her that it was awkward for me to enter tuk-tuks–I did so on my hands & knees, every time.